If your just looking to play imports and maybe burn games to the hd on a old style ps2 the soft mod is pretty easy. All you need is a ps1 memory card, a network adaptor and a hdd, and a ps1 game to boot it all up. I use a pizza hut ps1 demo disc but I hear gran turismo 2 works also. All you really need it for is to play imports and burn games to anyway. If your looking to play roms get a modded xbox. I also have a flip top on my ps2 so I dont have to use the swap magic trick and pry open my cd drive. Pretty usefull.
All you do is save the exploits to your ps1 memory card and your ready to go.
http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/107/62/
This may help you.